Overall a fairly great season. I really like the pacing of it. The threat of the wall was brought to light (although dimly) at the beginning of Season 1 and it hasn't been advanced on much at the end of it. Speaking of the Wall and its characters, I think Jon Snow will prove an apt hero in dealing with the Necromancer (my theory) and White Walkers. Jon's wolf also interests me. Jon wears White fur on his cloak unlike the others training with him, who wear brown or black. The wolf on Jon's sword is white. And Jon's wolf is Albino.

I've found that the wolves are highly representative of their masters. Arya is fierce but must hide it (like Nymeria who ran away). Joffrey essentially killed Sansa (or her free will, at least. She was no longer truly a Stark or herself.) just like he killed Lady. Jon's wolf, Ghost, is albino, and the runt of the litter, and Jon is the bastard son, the outcast, different from any other man.

I'm excited to see how Arya's travels to the Wall with the true heir to the throne go, as well as the conflict between the Wolf and the Lion.

I wish that Sansa had thrown Joffrey from the bridge. Would've solved a lot of problems. Though I'm guessing that the Hound will become loyal to her and end up killed at some point.

The end to the finale was an amazing one. Danaerys stepping into the flames, to emerge with three dragons, albeit small. I can only hope that a) they will get bigger, far bigger, and b) there will be more.

Here's to hoping that Rob, Jon, Arya, Dany, and Tyrian continue to survive through Season 2. Especially Arya and Dany.

A fairly great season if I do say so myself. Even if I finished it in 2 days (I'm a disgrace!)

I'll speak first on the introduction of two new characters - Ygritte and Melisandre (If that's her name - the fire witch). Ygritte I like a lot. She's a suitable companion to Jon Snow. I grew tired of Sam quickly. I'm sure that Ygritte will play more of a role in Season 3, so we'll have to see. Here's to hoping that she doesn't die too soon. Melisandre is definitely a powerhouse in secret. She's dark, conniving, and most surely powerful. How this plays out, I'm not sure, but it'd be great to see more flames blowing around.

Now, some other thoughts. Tyrian Lannister is officially a good guy in my book. I don't care that he works with Joffrey. I don't care that he's a Lannister. He's a good guy, end of story. Speaking of the Lannisters, Tywin Lannister was really brought into the story this season. I like him as a character. Not as dickish as some Lannisters.

Arya Stark remains my favorite character. I really hope that she'll mature during Season 3 and kill more people and stuff. Mature probably isn't the right word for it. I was sad that a) Nymeria, her wolf, didn't return, and b) she lost Needle. I laughed a lot during the season because the Lannisters were like "Find Arya! Send out all these soldiers to find Arya!" and Arya freaking waited on Tywin Lannister and still made it out.

Danaerys Targariyen is also up there for favorite characters. She was spectacular in the finale. Rob Stark, Jon Snow, and Tyrian Lannister also make the Top 5 for characters I don't want to die.

The Finale was pretty great. Sets up lots of stuff plotwise for Season 3 - especially behind the wall. I'll say what I said last time: the pacing is phenomenal.

So with Golf Camp, and League of Legends, and everything going on in my life, I'm ashamed to say that I'm still not fully caught up with Game of Thrones, while I should've been fully caught up in less than a week. Oh well. Just finished Episode 4x06, and

I'm sad to say that I only gave Game of Thrones my attention as it was coming up to the fourth season premiere. Safe to say that I became hooked and caught up with the first three seasons just in time for S4E01 to air.

Since then, I've spent the last couple of months attempting to plough my way through A Song of Ice and Fire. Almost finished A Feast For Crows and have both A Dance with Dragons books on standby (Glad I'm a UK reader, don't think I could manage that or A Storm of Swords in one book!)

Got to say I prefer the original series no end, but the show could be a much worse adaptation. Still, I'm really gutted at the lack of

About 100 pages into A Clash of Kings. Do these books always putz around this long at the beginning?

It definitely felt a harder read because of that in the earlier books, stick with it as A Storm of Swords is brilliant and what i've read so far (sans Brienne) in A Feast For Crows has also been great.

The storming and burning of Winterfell by the Ironmen/Boltons respectively
Bran and Rickon presumed dead
Robb invades the Lannister homelands
Catelyn releases Jamie Lannister
Stannis kills Renley and takes control of the Stormlands
Arya meets the faceless men and Roose Bolton takes over Harrenhall
Melisandre debuts and we see some real magic
Jon joins the wildlings
The Lannisters form a marriage alliance with the Tyrells
Stannis invades king's landing and gets smashed
Danaerys... Yeah, not really anything. She gets some cash?

It's a lot of set up for future interesting things and a couple of things that could be good if they didn't happen entirely off-page, but in terms of actual "hey there's cool and major stuff happening right now;"

Pretty much everything else is build up. Build up that gets paid off well a book or two down the line, but not really very interesting at the time. Imo it was the least interesting of the series to read (personal preference), and seemed slow by the standards of the series. Also it's pretty Stark-heavy and Ned is the only Stark I found even vaguely interesting in his own right (although Arya improves).

Finished A Clash of Kings, 100 pages into A Storm of Swords. The beginning is nowhere near as slow as the previous two books.

A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings both crawled along for the vast majority of the book, with enormous lurches into action later on that supply almost all of the plot development. Naturally, the plot develops at different rates for each character depending on how they go about it, but I think this rule of thumb holds true for most characters (except three I can think of...) in the first two books. No details unless requested, out of respect for those who are avoiding spoilers.

Favorite/meh characters for those who care... (spoilers for first two books)

Tyrion in A Clash of Kings is the best character I've seen so far, since you see most of the appeal of Martin's books encapsulated in one character's story. I say most because the absolute most interesting part of the series, for me, is the mythological background - which Tyrion plays absolutely no part in, at least in the second book. Because I like Tyrion, I also like Varys.

I really like Davos, and want to like Stannis, but Stannis has disappointed me. He has this reputation for being just, righteous, etc. but spends the entire book working against the reputation he's been said to have.

Jon is also getting a lot more interesting.

Mehs:
Bran sucks, per usual. His chapters are almost worthless.

Sansa was sort of getting better, since she's now a sympathetic character, but she still sucks compared to Arya, who is also problematic and boring in her own way. Her relationship with Cersei is interesting.

Dany was interesting in the first book, but sucks in the second because she accomplishes close to nothing the entire book, and just dicks around. Lame.

What the hell is going on with Robb and Petyr? I wish they were POV characters, and it's weird that they both have the dubious honor of having their actions only reported by other characters, but never seen by the POV characters, at least as far as I've read. On that note, Petyr is overrated - he's a good character, but not to the orgasmic level my friends seem to hold him at.

It is slowly building, we got a bit of good action last ep, not to mention a tonne of tension, slowly falling in love with Euron after he asked for 'advice'. Next ep I am expecting the big Dothraki battle we saw in the season trailer.